Since Protean Hulk's unbanning, there have been numerous decks popping up trying to take advantage of the compact and powerful combos that it allows. The build that most people gravitated towards was the classic cephalid breakfast combo, which basically uses Protean Hulk to mill your deck with protection, then win after you've done that. These decks are very powerful, because their colour identities allow you to play Flash + Protean Hulk and allow you to fit Grand Abolisher into your Protean Hulk line, among other cards.

Does not have any of these things; What we do have however, is a sacrifice outlet in the command zone.

Due to the nature of Protean Hulk, you need to do two things, first, get hulk, and second, get it to the graveyard. Varolz eliminates half of this problem by always having a way to get hulk into the graveyard once it's on the board, due to his second ability. This means that the entire deck can be dedicated to just getting Protean Hulk onto the battlefield.

At this point, you may be asking "Well that might good and all, but to get to that combo you have to have a 7-mana creature ANDVarolz out at the same time? That seems pretty difficult." And normally, you would be correct, but you may be forgetting that we are in Green and Black, the two colours that do unfair things involving creatures the best.

Green has a few options for cheating a green creature out of the deck, or at least getting to a creature in general. The premier cards for this in this deck though are Natural Order and Pattern of Rebirth, which, when paired with a mana dork and Varolz, are both direct lines to get to Protean Hulk. These are both very on-plan for us, as with the mentioned mana dork, we can power these out on turn 3 with Varolz already on the board, and threaten a win right there.

There are many, MANY lines to the win in this deck, but I'll try to write as many of them out as possible. As a recent addition to the deck, a lot of discard cards have been added, so remember that using a creature tutor and then using a discard spell or ability targeting yourself (Such as Thoughtseize or Sinister Concoction) to discard Protean Hulk is a way to get him into the grave for reanimation. Grim Flayer can also be used with top-of-deck tutors (Worldly Tutor,Vampiric Tutor,etc) to put Protean Hulk into the grave.

Sometimes, things are not perfect, or one of these lines will not get you there on its own, in that case, you may need to use an alternate line. This is a list of possible hulk piles that you may need to use. In order to use these piles, you will need to use Body Snatcher in order to get back your Protean Hulk and get to your win. Keep in mind, Body Snatcher's first ability is NOT a replacement effect, it is a triggered ability, this means that while that ability is on the stack, you can sacrifice it and use its second ability to reanimate Protean Hulk, thereby bypassing the need to discard a creature.

Many people will tell you that Phyrexian Delver is the better card out of these two, and normally, that is true, it allows you to get a full 3rd hulk after getting Mikaeus out, due to the undying trigger, but this leaves two things that I find unsatisfactory, A. the fact that you can only get 1 CMC worth of creatures off of the first hulk if you are running Delver, which means you cannot combo if you have a combo piece in your hand or exile, and B. it loses you 7 life minimum, up to 14 life, on top of whatever you payed to reanimate the hulk in the first place. Body Snatcher on the other hand does not have either of these downsides, at the cost of having to be sacrificed before the first trigger resolves, and it cannot make a 3rd hulk, because it needs to be sacrificed to reanimate. Well, we don't really need the 3rd hulk if we can fit the extra 1 CMC of creatures into a hulk with it, and we have a sacrifice outlet in the command zone.

It's not very often you see an Ad Nauseam in hulk decks, or any reanimator decks at all for that matter, but it really does work, there are only 6 cards in the entire deck with >3 CMC, with one of those being Ad Nauseam itself. The average non-land CMC of the deck is at 1.64 at the time of writing, which means that doing the math of (68 nonlands * 1.64 avg nonland cmc)/99 = 1.126 per card, which means you are getting around 30 cards per Ad Nauseam, and since there are ways of winning off of hulk, even with a combo piece in your hand, it means that Ad Nauseam is very much worth it in the deck. This card is also the reason why taking damage and average CMC is such a big deal in the deck, because every point of damage taken is a card not drawn.

In B/G, you do not have a tonne of ways to interact with the stack, so these cards are here to interact before anything even hits the stack. Use these cards to strip countermagic and hate before you combo. Targeted discard also pulls double-duty in reanimator decks, as they allow us to point them at ourselves to get reanimation targets out of our hands and into the grave, where we can get them to the board from much more efficiently.

A new addition that is currently in testing, hits our Ad Naus a bit and is a tad expensive, but makes up for it in flexibility and raw power. In the best case scenario, this discards a hulk stuck in hand, kills a hatebear, and strips hate out of an opponent's hand. Fail case, this is a 2 mana hatebear killer, or a 2 mana duress, not horrible at all.

These have been cut as a side-effect of not running Phyrexian Delver, as there is no way to fit them into a hulk line, and simply cost too much to reasonably be casting when you are winning the game, they also raise the aCMC for Ad Nauseam. Look for their replacements in Caustic Caterpillar and Golgari Thug

Beast Within is a great card, we all know it, but unfortunately, we are not stax, and we are not Selvala. It just costs too much for us to be happily casting, and the fact that it is 3cmc also hurts our Ad Nauseam, so as painful as it may be, we have to say goodbye for now to our good friend.

Stax effects really just aren't where you want to be with this deck, it never feels good to spend 2 mana on a card like this, when you could be furthering your own win condition. For this reason, I am also not playing stax effects, even if they don't affect the deck at all.

These have been considered, and some pilots may like to have the extra protection, however, in my experience, these are too much mana to be worth playing. Varolz consistently runs tight on mana requirements to win early, and he doesn't produce any more mana than what you have at the start of your combo. Even without these protection pieces, if you play correctly, and time your win and interaction properly, you should still be coming out on top.

These look good at first glance, but there are some major downsides; first, for high market, it doesn't produce coloured mana, which you really want in this deck, and it's not actually that great of a sac outlet, only being a once-per-turn and giving nothing in return, I'd much rather be playing a coloured source in it's place. Second, for tower, I would totally run the card, if only it produced coloured mana without having to sacrifice a creature. Again, you really want coloured mana, and typically, you're only going to have 1 non-Varolz creature at a time, which you need to bank for Pattern of Rebirth and Natural Order, otherwise they become dead cards.

Actually a bit slow for the deck, if you're going turn 1 dork -> turn 2 varolz, it doesn't afford you much time or mana to actually use it efficiently, it does smooth out every turn after those, but those are going to be the key turns when you're looking to have action in your mulligans

I actually highly suggest both of these for potential budget builds or more midrange builds, but because this is a budgetless balls-to-the-wall build, I'd much rather be playing higher-powered draw like Ad Nauseam or Necropotence, or just be playing tutors instead. You are also looking to win before running out of gas becomes an issue generally, so they're not as good here as they are in a Doomsday deck, because they can't serve the dual-purpose of cracking a pile.

This cut hurt a lot, but I realized that I was never using it to clear more than 1 creature at a time, with a life cost, and a cost of killing my own board, so I've cut it to lower the curve for Ad Nauseam, and more streamlined removal. Still playable in a creature-heavy meta.

Varolz is a very fast combo deck that is new and has seen very little play, the first time people see the deck, they will usually have no idea what's going on until way too late if you play it correctly.

One of the main things that this deck has going for it, is that many of the lines to hulk don't put the hulk itself in a vulnerable position, which means that you can find another way later in the game and attempt to win again, there are times when you will have a Natural Order countered, and will be able to try again the next turn with a reanimate plan, because nobody ever had access to your hulk except for you.

The deck is also very resilient to many stax effects that are typically played against fast combo; because you only really need to cast 3/4 cards at maximum to win the game, sphere effects are significantly worse against you versus the rest of the fast combo field. This also applies to Rule of Law effects, as you can just cast a Pattern of Rebirth and win in one shot, or end-of-turn Entomb into a reanimate on your turn to win.

Your main weakness as a fast combo deck, is, as always, running out of gas. There will be games where you will have an attempt at a win foiled, and will never come back from it. There will be games where someone drops a turn 1 Rest in Peace, and you never find the answer to it. There will be games that somebody casts Linvala, Keeper of Silence and locks you out of the game. There are games where Sidisi or Grenzo go first, and they win before you can do anything. These are all things that will happen, and they are things that you need to be aware of if you are playing the deck. Learn what you can and cannot deal with, politic with the table, and know what you are getting into. I would not suggest playing this deck if your meta is fully prepared for hulk, or is infested with stax and control players. That being said, some of the most satisfying games to win are those that you have been locked out of since turn 1, and made a comeback nobody expected.

Updates

Big 'Ol deck update; A lot of changes in ideology and card choices, with a primer update forthcoming, stay tuned! The big big change is the introduction of more discard on command effects and creature tutors to effectively give the deck more "Build-Your-Own-Entomb"s.

May 31, 2017
2:21 a.m.

June 2, 2017
12:33 a.m.

hey cool deck - finally a i find a golgari hulk list that looks tight at all cards.

regardless that i wouldn't know what to replace those with - but have you thought aboutPeat Bog or Blood Pet ?

they are not particular better than other cards but could add more overall ramp or be faster than maybe priest of titania or wall of roots.bog's strenght imo is being compact ramp. the more aggressive a deck needs to mulligan the more i like them as it can be like a land and a dork turn 1 in one card.pet's strength is in the niche scenario that you need to fetch mana in your hulk lines like caustic caterpillar.

July 9, 2017
4:17 p.m.

Hey elfric, thanks for the feedback! On the subject of Peat Bog, I have considered adding in the charge lands (Hickory Woodlot as well), but recently, I have been running into numerous Blood Moon decks, and in those games, an extra swamp or forest makes all the difference. If your meta is different, I would suggest testing them out and seeing how they work for you. On Blood Pet, it has been itching for a spot for a while now, but there's just no card I would take out for it, you really need a critical mass of green creatures for Natural Order, and the deck is sitting just above that threshold. as for Beast Within, it is a great card, yes, but with access to black, there is cheaper creature removal such as Vendetta and Slaughter Pact to deal with Linvala, and due to how tight you will usually be running on mana, it just costs too much to make the cut.

July 9, 2017
4:48 p.m.

July 10, 2017
10:47 p.m.

Hey artichoker! I actually haven't really done much theorywork with Xantid Swarm or Hope of Ghirapur, althought I do have a reason for that. Generally, you are going to go turn 1 dork, turn 2 Varolz, turn 3 attempt a win. Trying to fit a 1 mana creature in on turns 1-2 can really hurt, and there's no way to give either haste in the deck, so they end up feeling very slow. Generally, the same spot that is filled by those can be filled by Autumn's Veil instead, which, while not a creature, has effective haste, as well as flash, so you can surprise blue players better. Thanks for the suggestion! They are definitely great cards, and have a spot in testing, they just don't make it into the deck right now.

July 10, 2017
11:19 p.m.

Hey, this deck looks really cool. I had a struggle on choosing either Jarad or Gitrog as my Golgari commander but this deck changed my choice. Also, do you have any budget recommendations for more expensive cards as I don't have the biggest wallet?

July 12, 2017
8:52 a.m.

Hey The_Llanowar_Elf, I've done a bit of playing around with budget versions of this deck, this is what I can recommend; For stuff like Bayou and any other expensive lands, I would replace them with Peat Bog and Hickory Woodlot first, then any after that with basics. For tutors, I would suggest trying to fit in more mana dorks that are not in the deck currently, such as Devoted Druid or Bloom Tender. Hope I could help.

July 13, 2017
11:38 p.m.

High Market, Phyrexian Tower - extra sacrifice outlets, the Tower especially good, because it provides speed. I understand that you already have a decent sacrifice outlet in commander zone, but it always good to have another one in reserve.

July 18, 2017
12:34 p.m.

Hey Matrixxx999, great to see someone taking interest in card choices! I'll run over my reasonings for my exclusion of those card choices real quick, and I'll add them to the notable exclusions as well.

High Market, Phyrexian Tower: These look good at first glance, but there are some major downsides; first, for high market, it doesn't produce coloured mana, which you really want in this deck, and it's not actually that great of a sac outlet, only being a once-per-turn and giving nothing in return, I'd much rather be playing a coloured source in it's place. Second, for tower, I would totally run the card, if only it produced coloured mana without having to sacrifice a creature. Again, you really want coloured mana, and typically, you're only going to have 1 non-Varolz creature at a time, which you need to bank for pattern of rebirth and natural order, otherwise they become dead cards.

Reflecting Pool: I don't really need this in a 2-c deck, I'd rather play a basic, and have more resilience against blood moon

Sensei's Divining Top: Actually a bit slow for the deck, if you're going turn 1 dork -> turn 2 varolz, it doesn't afford you much time or mana to actually use it efficiently, it does smooth out every turn after those, but those are going to be the key turns when you're looking to have action in your mulligans

Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood: I actually highly suggest both of these for potential budget builds or more midrange builds, but because this is a budgetless build, I'd much rather be playing higher-powered draw like ad naus or necropotence, or just be playing tutors instead. You are also looking to win before running out of gas becomes an issue generally, so they're not as good here as they are in a Doomsday deck, because they can't serve the dual-purpose of cracking a pile.

October 26, 2017
2:48 p.m.

November 27, 2017
1:49 a.m.

Phyrexian_plague_rider459, unfortunately, in this build of the deck, summoner's pact doesn't actually grab any combo pieces, because you have no consistent or cheap way to cheat protean hulk into play from your hand, so summoner's pact is more often than not, just a dead slot.

November 27, 2017
12:55 p.m.

Phyrexian_plague_rider459, due to recent changes to the philosophy of the deck, in an effort to solve long-standing problems, pact has been readded due to the increased number of live discard effects to use it well

Artifact (6)

1x Chrome&emsp13;Mox

1x Lotus&emsp13;Petal

1x Mana&emsp13;Crypt

1x Mana&emsp13;Vault

1x Mox&emsp13;Diamond

1x Sol&emsp13;Ring

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